


Th' Inconstant Moon

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/M, Pre-White House (West Wing)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-16
Updated: 2004-02-16
Packaged: 2019-05-15 15:18:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14792958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Someone else's husband, someone else's wife, cigarettes.





	Th' Inconstant Moon

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**Th' Inconstant Moon**

**by: Delightfully Eccentric**

**Character(s):** Abbey, Hoynes  
**Pairing(s):** Abbey/Hoynes  
**Category(s):** Pre-Administration  
**Rating:** TEEN  
**Disclaimer:** The West Wing characters and backstories aren't mind and are borrowed with love.  
**Summary:** Someone else's husband, someone else's wife, cigarettes.  
**Spoiler:** None  
**Written:** April 2003  


Someone else's husband was propped up against the headboard, supporting himself with one elbow, his nudity shielded by the body of someone else's wife, lying prone across him. 

It was the prelude, before curtains up. He liked the quiet moments but she would never permit them afterwards. When their business was concluded, she behaved exactly if it had been strictly professional. She did not pause for terms of endearment, nor would she have tolerated any on his part had he felt the need to bestow any. She even snapped her clothes back on like they were surgical gloves. 

For and illicit affair, it had become curiously routine. Even as his heart was still pounding, she'd be leaning over the edge of the bed, rifling in the pockets of her discarded pants. Sometimes his hand wandered to her buttocks while she searched; she showed no interest at this stage. 

He would reach for the silver lighter he'd left on the bedside table in expectation of her company. She wasn't a practicing smoker, really, but the love of tobacco ran in her veins-and on occasion a husky quality in her voice betrayed her. She had started as an overgrown child, too smart not to play at being stupid, and caught the bug. She'd cold turkeyed herself sometime between the SATs and the MCATs and now strictly rationed herself to a single cigarette post coitus. 

When this started he used to try to ignite it for her but she always took the lighter and sparked the flame to life herself. He didn't move while she inhaled. He watched her bare chest rise and fall and let the smoke fill his nostrils. It at least spared him the task of spraying air freshener to disguise her scent, although he always took hell from his wife for smoking inside the house. 

It never occured to him to ask Abbey to smoke outside. She had never asked permission. 

He liked the cigarette. It marked the transition from the raw sexuality to the sterility of her manner towards him the rest of the time. It was a rare expression of humanity. She did not always like to confess to being mere flesh and blood. 

It was followed by a brief shower, alone, cleansing her skin of sweat and him with his wife's perfumed soap. Meanwhile he watched the clock and sniffed her underwear, always more functional than exotic, as if she were saving her best for her husband. John didn't doubt it. The shower never took less than four minutes, never more than six. 

She dried and dressed in front of him, and it was over at that. He didn't bother to cover himself until she was gone, which never took long. 

He wondered, when his mind wandered to her, if it has started because she had been drinking that night. She did not get drunk-she had a young daughter, after all-but certainly she was borderline giddy the first evening. 

It was a town hall meeting, the kind her husband would have spoken at if he'd been in the state. He was in the state very infrequently at that time. John did not delude himself that she would have indulged him if the circumstances had been different. 

The town's gentry stood around in groups afterwards, drinking wine and congratulating each other on the achievements of their kids. He sipped grape juice and worked at being deferential to people who might one day improve his prospects while his wife mingled 

Abbey's back brushed against his as he hovered by the buffet. It seemed no one could think of anything to say to her beyond asking after her husband's welfare, and how her daughter was enjoying school. No one asked about her work, and no one stayed to chat long. 

She did not appreciate being abandoned, particularly bound to the house with a child to care for. She could, of course, have followed her husband when he took the new job. But that would ahve meant quitting her own. She would eventually, John suspected. For now she put up a fight. 

She was angry with him for going, for not visiting more often, for not fighting harder. From what little John remembered, the husband was not as confrontational as the wife, though he could be a pain in the ass if something got him riled. 

It was more than revenge, he believed, and hoped to be true. She was also, as he had discovered the pleasurable way, a passionate woman. 

And a tearful one when he found her outside. He had been looking for a breath of air, a furtive smoke and the chance to rest his aching jaw from laughing at bad jokes. He had not expected to find himself cradling a sobbing woman and finding her breast squeezed against his body. 

"It's the wine," she said. "And hormones." 

She was a scientist, had a healthy respect for chemical processes and was not ashamed of admitting their effects, nor above using them as an excuse when convenient. 

"It's okay," he said blandly. 

He brushed the back of his hand across her cheek. It came away wet. He produced a handkerchief and gently wiped at the tears. 

She never criticized her husband in front of him-a betrayal too far-but it was a long time before John stopped wondering exactly what the man had done to make her angry enough to lift a steady surgeon's hand and take his, and then touch it to her lips. She kissed her tears from his fingertips. 

Perhaps she was nervous, or just upset, but her chest heaved against him. 

Reflexively he turned to see if there was any way they could be observed. By the time his eyes were back on her, her face was closer, there was no avoiding it now, she was locked on and kissing around his mouth but not quite landing. 

He shouldn't kiss her: she'd been drinking and he wanted to do the same. 

It was too late, already, to think again, or indeed at all. 

He offered to drive her home...since she wasn't feeling well. She said he could get her coat. 

A makeshift cloakroom: a pile of outer garments strewn across a bed. Camel-hair scratched at his knee; rivulets of sweat appeared on a leather coat under her back. It was almost fully-clothed sex. He remembered fumbling awkwardly with his zipper, and the most interesting discovery that Jed Bartlet's wife had an allergy to underwear. She was wild-whether it was the wine or the involuntary abstinence or just his own masculine charms, he didn't much care. 

By the time they were finished her hair had become entangled in the mother-of-pearl buttons of the Mayor's wife's coat. He reached to try and free her, but she swatted his hands away. Their stifled moans gave way to fits of giggles. He wasn't sure this was funny but her laugh was full-blooded and throaty and it sounded good. 

He offered a hand to pull her to her feet. She reached instead into his pocket. 

"Do you have a light?" 

His wife felt sorry for Abbey and her scattered family. She did not appear to realize that she could scarcely be more distant from her own husband. 

One day she invited Abbey over for afternoon tea while Elizabeth was at school. She accused him of being without compassion when he suggested it wasn't a good idea. 

Abbey is proud, he said. She won't like being made to feel like a charity case. It's not charity, his wife told him. It's friendship. 

There was resolve in the set of her shoulders-this had become a pet project. She wanted to groom Abbey to join her set. Get her knitted out in twin-sets and pearls. Join the bridge club. 

He would not have considered this a wise move even had he not been taking the woman into his wife's bed. 

In bed-before, as usual-he warned her of his wife's plan and advised her to make her excuse. 

"No," she said. "That would be impolite." 

So they sat around the coffee table in the conservatory. He was too tall to sit comfortably in the basket chair; his knees jutted upwards. His fingertips drummed upon them. 

The two women were just the right size and were both impeccably turned out. However, beside Abbey's vibrant green and shiny red, his wife was positively washed out in pastels. It was monochrome versus Technicolor, not much of a contest. 

His wife frowned at him. He tried to sit still but the attempt was doomed from that start. 

She turned to the other woman. "So, you *will* come." 

He winced at the shadow of a flinch that passed through Abbey at the command. He'd allowed himself to be browbeaten into coming because he'd been afraid of what might transpire in his absence. He didn't know why he'd thought his presence might help. 

"Alicia," he said, thought he didn't know what he meant to convey by it. Back off, perhaps. Shut up, quite likely. Keep away from this woman. Save yourself. 

"Be a lamb and see if the pastries are ready, okay, hon?" his wife said. It was almost a baby-talk voice. He wondered if she would be different, less hollow, if they had a child. 

As he stood, almost knocking over the ridiculous chair in the process, he saw his wife's wink and someone else's wife's knowing smile. He could translate enough of the language of women to know that this exchange meant roughly, 'Let's get the spare part out of the room and then we girls can talk properly.' He turned his back on the proceedings. 

He returned in time to catch the tail end of what he supposed was an intimate conversation. Well, they were intimate by proxy, although one of them didn't know it. 

"...and I love him, though you wouldn't know it." 

He knew, of course, that Abbey couldn't possibly be referring to him but fingers of mild panic tightened around his throat anyway. 

"*Of course* everyone knows it!" His wife's brisk tone. He hears the scrape of a chair being pushed back and knew Alicia was standing, leaning over Abbey. He could picture a far-too-expensive manicured hand pressed into each of Abbey's shoulders, the woman beneath simmering quietly. Becoming more dangerous. 

He threw open the door. "Refreshments!" He sounded like a housewife. 

"I was just telling Abbey about hose great ideas Meg Laverty had for the fundraiser, do you remember?" 

He smile thinly and with tension. 

"Sure. Great." 

"She doesn't seem so keen. Help me convince her." 

"I think she can make up her own mind." 

Abbey's eyes darted between them like an observer at a tennis match. That'd be the next thing Alicia would suggest, a game of mixed doubles-if she could rustle up a partner for Abbey. 

His wife made a disapproving sound and turned away, giving up on him. 

"Reconsider, Abbey, please. It's *very* fulfilling." 

"Well, I should tell you, I'm pretty damn fulfilled right now." 

He began to cough. Abbey looked at him with a glowing, wicked grin. Alicia missed it. 

She said, "You know, we haven't settled on a cause for this year's event." 

He knew the wheels had turned and the machine in her head just spat something out. 

"Do you think the hospital might be interested in being involved?" 

She might not be the smartest woman he knew, or even the smartest in the room, but she had a few skills of her own when it came to picking up on things that might help her get what she wanted. He just wished she hadn't decided to want the same woman he did. 

"The hospital?" Abbey repeated, sitting up a little straighter. 

"Yes. I suppose they always need more money for something, don't they?" 

"Keeping the county healthy does set us back a fair whack," Abbey said with a wry smile. 

"I'll bet," Alicia beamed broadly. "I'll just bet." 

An alliance was formed. 

John replaced his pastry on the plate. He was not longer hungry. 

It was even more sordid the next time. This woman, treating his wife like a friend. This woman, with her parted thighs and her compact curves that always gave him somewhere soft and wonderful and womanly to rest his hands. Rasping in his ear as she asked him for more. This woman, sitting in his conservatory spinning his wife a sad story about how much she missed her absent husband. And it was true, every damn word, except for the ones she missed out. It was more sordid this time, and more wrong. John came quicker than usual but it didn't matter. She was faster yet. 

He raised himself slowly off her and lay back, filling the air with hot gasps as his heartbeat slowed. It was not yet clear if he was relieved that the encounter with his wife hadn't changed things, or, for the same reason, horrified at himself-and, let's be honest, at Abbey too and even a little bit at Alicia for being so blind. 

It was a moment or two before he realized something was different. Abbey hadn't moved yet. Even as he thought it, she started to stand, but there was a piece of the routine missing. 

He inclined his head in the direction of the lighter on the table. She frowned momentarily, irritated, but didn't try evasive maneuvers. Not her style: she told lies or truth, nothing in between. 

"I'm pregnant." 

Her hand closed around the doorknob of the en suite; his mind had to work fast to get the message to his mouth before she was gone. 

"*How*?" 

Her face contorted into a sneer: "I *know* you don't need me to draw you a diagram." 

The water was flowing before he could calculate which of his myriad of questions was the most pressing. He took the unprecedented step of following her into the bathroom. He yanked the shower curtain aside. 

She was turned half-away from him, wet hair pasted to the back of her neck. Bubbles cascaded down slippery skin as one hand twisted back to lather her shoulder blades. The other gripped a soapy breast. She didn't move when she saw him. 

"This is an invasion of privacy." 

He tried not to splutter his outrage-it was undignified. 

"Abbey, we've been fucking for months! What's private" 

Her face was wonderfully impassive. He wondered how she did that. 

"Everything," she said. 

She pried his fingers from their grip on the curtain and drew it shut. 

He perched on the edge of the toilet seat and watched her silhouette as she finished the cleansing ritual. 

She raised her eyebrows as if surprised to see him when she was done, but he did not believe that much took her by surprise. 

She rubbed herself with a fluffy pale towel his wife had just bought, leaving bare patches of flesh her and there. He reflexively fixated on her belly. It betrayed nothing. 

Before he had the chance to speak: "It's not yours." 

He inhaled. "Are you-" 

"I'm sure." 

"How do-" 

"I'm sure, Johnnie." He hated being called Johnnie, like a little momma's boy. "Trust me." 

He knew better than that. 

"I want a paternity test." 

By this time they had progressed to the bedroom. She was gathering her clothes but paused to meet his gaze. 

"That's assuming a lot." 

"What to you mean?" 

Just as she fixed him with a pitying look, he understood. 

She was at the door. 

"Abbey, wait." 

"It's none of your business." 

"None of my-!" 

"It isn't yours." 

"Then who the fuck-" 

"Jed came down for the weekend. Last week in September, remember? We hadn't seen each other in three months, you think we talked about the weather?" 

He trots beside her down the stairs. 

"You can't be sure." 

"I'm a doctor; I'm sure." 

"If you're so sure then why would you even consdier not having it?" 

"He's not here, is he?" 

She hesitated inside the main doorway. 

"It's none of your business." 

She delfected his hand with an impatient swat before it could even come down to rest on her arm. 

"This thing is over, John, which should be great for you because you'll have nothing to feel guilty about anymore. And this other thing, well you're not part of that." 

He was convinced, almost. Partially. Convinced that he was in a corner and the only way out was her way. Really, what did the think he was going to do? Beg her? For what? 

She, at least, had no doubts. "If you make the smallest attempt to interfere in my life, I can give you a cast iron promise that you will regret it." 

She was backing out of the door. A winter sun, as fierce as she, backlit her in a sharp glow. It made her look harder. Was this radiance? He had no experience of pregnant women. It looked unlikely he was going to accumulate any in the near future. 

He thought, as she slammed the car door, that it was a natural, if sudden, death for the affair. Such things could not go on indefinitely. 

Yet if she had a child... 

Her tire tracks marred the drive. Insurance salesman, door-to-door, that's what he would tell his wife. 

If would be best to believe her. Safest. For both of them, for her family, for his. For the baby she may or may not give birth to. 

He pictured Jed crashing back into town when she told him. Told him part of it. The fluffy part, the part that Hallmark made congratulations cards about. 

It would work out, John suspected, just the way she wanted it. 

Back indoors, he flicked through a telephone directory. He should buy something for Alicia. Flowers. Not very original, but neither was she. 

He climbed the stairs, one foot dragging behind the other. The bed needed making; the windows should be opened to let out some of the smoke and sex. Just as usual. 

Best to believe her. Not an ideal situation, but the best option in the circumstances. It was good politics. As he pushed the curtains aside to open the window, the lighter on the bedside table caught his eye. He sat down on the indentations in the covers where her body had been. He lit a cigarette. 


End file.
